An Apostle of Gloom (19 page)

“He once told Malone.”

“Oh,” said Roger.

He wished he could understand why she had been quite so determined to keep silent. She must have realised the gravity of the situation. Time and time again she had been compelled to face up to it, and yet until almost the last she had refused to speak. Then, for the first time, he wondered whether she had told
all
the truth. He was going to assure Chatworth that she had; meant to use his influence to make sure that she was not victimised; yet –
could
there be something else?

He was uneasy when he walked up the steps of the Yard and yet he did and said nothing to give Lois an inkling of his doubts. Although it was late, he took her to Abbott's office. He wished some other Superintendent were in charge, for Abbott might have a bad effect on her. Surprisingly, however, Abbott greeted her without a fuss, listened to the story, and then spoke gently and reassuringly. Perhaps, thought Roger, Abbott understood something of what was in the girl's mind and the importance of what might come from it. At all events, the man did nothing to make Lois regret her decision and, less than an hour afterwards, Roger took her across the dark square and through the gates to Cannon Row, where she was housed in one of the rooms, not a cell. Roger saw her quiet smile, and could not believe that she had deceived him, yet he still remained uneasy.

Only when he was back in Abbott's office did he realise that he had seen nothing of Malone.

Then he told Abbott about Mortimer Oliphant.

 

 

“What do you suggest we do, West?” asked Abbott.

The question was typical of the change in the man; at another time he would have given instructions and not listened to any argument. He had the reputation of being quite the most self-sufficient officer at the Yard. Now he seemed sincere as he waited for Roger to reply. It was eleven o'clock; they could hear the sonorous notes of Big Ben.

“We-ell,” said Roger, “I don't think we should act too quickly, do you?” Abbott shook his head. “We've this list of names to investigate and when we've interviewed each man we should have a better idea of what it's all about.”

Abbott looked surprised.

“The disposal of looted goods, surely?”

“The looting took place a long time ago,” Roger reminded him.

“So you think there's something else?”

“Yes. It could be Black Market, ordinary theft, smuggling—” Roger shrugged his shoulders. “Theorising isn't going to help much, but I can't believe it's only looting. Pickerell wouldn't keep tablets of cyanide of potassium in his desk and probably in his pocket because he was afraid of being picked up for trafficking in looted goods.”

“No,” admitted Abbott, “I had missed that.”

“And I think it knocks out the more straightforward crimes,” Roger went on. “It could be espionage very carefully hidden, and yet I'm inclined to doubt that.”

“You've no hard and fast ideas?”

“None,” admitted Roger; “all I know is that it's something of exceptional size. Malone's gang, Oliphant, the Society – suggesting something which has been working for nearly three years – the murder of Joe Leech and, probably, that of Mrs. Cox – add those things together and you have a formidable business, which no ordinary motive will account for.”

Abbott pressed the tops of his thin fingers together, admitting: “I am inclined to agree.”

“And, of course, the Society is of primary importance,” Roger said. “I wish I were more sure of Mrs. Cartier. She's given me an uneasy feeling that she hasn't acted for the best of motives. Perhaps she got in touch with me for some deep reason of her own and she hasn't told me anything like all the truth. You've checked up on her and her husband, of course?”

“Yes,” said Abbott. He pushed a file across to Roger and sat back. “Read the reports – there's no hurry,” he said.

The office, on the third floor of the Yard, was very quiet as Roger read through the report on Mrs. Cartier. She was of French birth but had become a naturalised Englishwoman in 1936 – the year before her marriage to Sylvester Cartier. Daughter of a wealthy Lyons merchant, she had been educated in England for several years. She had been one of the first to offer hospitality to Frenchmen who had come from France before the 1940
débâcle
and her interest in her native country had, it appeared, always remained strong. According to the report, she had first thought of the Society of European Relief when she had been approached by some Frenchmen of the professional classes who had been unable to find their niche in England or with the Free French authorities. There were many cases of hardship. She had helped them and then extended her activities. The Society had been in being for a little more than a year and it had a great deal in its favour. Wealthy Frenchmen in England and wealthy Francophiles had contributed towards the funds. Apparently Mrs. Cartier did most of the canvassing for money herself, and there was nothing surprising in the fact that she obtained good results – most men would have found the way from their hearts to their pockets after a visit from Mrs. Sylvester Cartier!

There was nothing beyond that and the fact that she had married Sylvester Cartier in 1937.

Another report, on her husband, was much more brief. Cartier had inherited a large fortune from his father – Roger suddenly realised why the name was so familiar.
Cartier's Food Products,
of course! They were known everywhere – the name was almost as familiar as that of Heinz, Chef Brand and a dozen others. He felt annoyed with himself for having missed it.

Educated at Eton and Balliol, a dilettante, a collector of
objets d'art
and antique furniture, Cartier appeared to have lived a life of leisured ease. He was on the director's board of
Cartier's Food Products
but apparently took little active interest in the company's affairs. He had been prominent in polo circles, had travelled widely, had a widely renowned library, dabbled in philately, was a member of three exclusive clubs. ‘Correct' was the word to apply to Sylvester Cartier; no man's record could have been more in keeping with his elegant appearance. There was a note saying that he had been rejected by the Services because of evidence of valvular disease of the heart. Before the war, he had always wintered in France. He had a house at Weybridge – Roger remembered seeing that in the telephone directory – as well as a flat in London under his wife's name and a large country house in Dorset.

Roger finished and looked up, ruefully.

“There isn't much to glean from those, is there?” he said.

“Not a great deal about either of them,” said Abbott. “What isn't in the report is that he always mildly disapproved of his wife's activities.”

Roger shrugged. “He would probably think that waging the war was the job of the common people.”

“I think you're right,” Abbott said, “but he is not alone in that.”

“Who are the family solicitors?” asked Roger.

Abbott smiled bleakly. “Not Oliphant! Rogerson, Keene, Keene and Rogerson, of Gray's Inn Fields. Quite irreproachable.”

“Yes!” Roger was crisp, he stood up and began to pace the office. “They're both so irreproachable that it seems almost too good to be true and yet, I can't help feeling that I am spreading suspicions too widely. She might have meant everything she said, and if Malone had the slightest suspicion that she was one of his employers, he certainly wouldn't have treated her so roughly. I think we'd better concentrate on the list of names and addresses, don't you?”

“Yes,” said Abbott, briefly, “especially Oliphant.”

Roger said: “Will you leave him to me?”

“To you?” asked Abbott, slowly, and then more briskly. “Yes, I think that's wise, West. You won't encourage Lessing or this friend of Miss Randall's to do too much off their own bat, will you?”

Roger smiled. “They'll be good!”

He left the Yard soon afterwards, wishing that he had his own car with him, and decided that he would go to Bell Street and get it out of the garage, first thing in the morning – he could use it now, although while under suspension he could not have done. He heard Big Ben strike midnight. The moon was bright and shimmered on the water, it threw the clock and the Houses of Parliament into soft relief. The scene was exactly the same as when he had left the night before, when he had been far less troubled than he was now.

Lois – Mrs. Cartier – Oliphant – the grim scene beneath the floorboards at the New Street house, all harassed him. Twice as he walked towards Parliament Street, he turned abruptly at the sound of footsteps behind him. Once a soldier passed, another time a woman hurried furtively onwards. He had thought of Malone on both occasions – Malone was far too much on his mind. Two taxis passed him but were occupied. It would not take him twenty minutes to walk to the Legge Hotel, yet the fact that he could not get a cab annoyed him, and he thought longingly of his car. There was a garage at the hotel; it might be a good idea to go to Chelsea and then drive to Buckingham Palace Gate. That was absurd, he told himself, he would have to get a cab in order to reach Chelsea. He—

That taxi driver!

He had telephoned the house several times, but Morgan's man, tired of his vigil, had nothing to report. He had asked Cornish, earlier in the day, to try to trace the man – no news meant that Cornish had failed. He had learned the man's name – Dixon. Dixon had followed Cartier's Daimler; the fact that he had not returned was peculiar, to say the least of it.

“Oh, he phoned up and found no one in and gave it up as a bad job,' Roger thought testily.

Eventually he had to walk to the hotel.

He told the others what had happened but remained preoccupied. There was no answer when he called Bell Street, but just before he went to bed the telephone rang. It was Cornish in an apologetic frame of mind. He was at the Yard and knew that Roger had been there until midnight, so he hoped he hadn't brought him out of bed.

“Oh, no,” said Roger. “Have you found that cabby for me?”

“You mean Dixon?” said Cornish. “No, I haven't, Roger. In fact, I meant to tell you earlier in the day that I was put on to another job and couldn't follow it up myself. But there is one peculiar thing—”

“Yes?” asked Roger.

“He hasn't been to his home since yesterday morning,” Cornish said.

“Hasn't he, by Jove!”

“No.” Cornish dismissed the subject and went on: “I've been with Smith of AZ Division most of the day, Roger, trying to find Malone and Pickerell. I thought you ought to know that we haven't had any luck. Malone's reputation is worse than I thought it was. Er—I should keep my eyes open, if I were you.”

“I've just about sized him up,” Roger said.

“I thought you would have done! How are things?”

“I suppose I shouldn't grumble,” Roger said.

Cornish rang off and Roger returned to the lounge, which was virtually reserved for them after ten o'clock at night. He stood in front of the fireplace with his hands deep in his trousers pockets. Mark contemplated him with a frown of concentration on his forehead. Janet had gone to bed and Tennant was pretending to be immersed in an evening paper.

Roger looked at him, frowning, then shrugged.

“Do you feel tired?” he asked.

“Who me?” Tennant dropped the paper and jumped up. “Great Scott, no!”

“Who, me?” asked Mark, forlornly.

“Both of you,” said Roger. “I think we'd better keep an eye on Oliphant's house. Do you know where it is, Mark?”

“Yes, he's in Cheyne Walk, just round the corner from a flat I used to have,” said Mark, promptly. “Any instructions?”

“Just keep a lonely vigil,” Roger said with a grin.

Both of the others seemed glad of the opportunity, but when they had gone Roger wondered whether it were wise. Abbott had been generous when he had asked to be allowed to handle Oliphant, but it might have been better to have put Yard men to watch him. Roger's objection to that was that Oliphant would probably recognise a Yard man at sight and thereby realise that he was under suspicion. It was not time to scare him.

Roger went to bed; Janet, now that Lois had gone, was less on edge and she looked very tired and spoke sleepily from the pillows.

“Back home tomorrow,” she said; “we needn't stay here now, darling, need we?”

“No,” said Roger, in some surprise; he had not thought of that. He smiled to himself, but he was a long time getting to sleep. The problems weighed heavily on him, questions confronted him on all sides. No matter where he looked he saw reason for suspicion and disquiet; most of all, the uncertainty about the real nature of the crime worried him.

He went to sleep at last.

A maid brought tea at eight o'clock. The sun shone through the net curtains at the window and made even the grey slate roofs of adjoining buildings look bright and cheerful. Downstairs, the B.B.C. announcer reading the news had cheerful things to say.

Janet was fresh-eyed as she sat up in bed, but when she got up she felt dizzy and sat down again abruptly. Startled, Roger said: “Are you all right?”

“Er—yes,” said Janet. “I—” she hesitated. She was smiling, although she looked pale, the change in her since she had got out of bed was astonishing. Roger stared at her, puzzled. “Darling,” she said in an unsteady voice, “sometimes you're as blind as a bat!”

“Oh,” said Roger, blankly, “am I?”

“Yes,” Janet said and added quickly: “I've suspected it for some time but I wanted to be really sure, darling. I
was
sure on my birthday and I was going to tell you after we'd seen
Arsenic and Old Lace.
But I couldn't worry you after Abbott came.”

“What
are
you talking about?” demanded Roger, completely mystified.

Janet's eyes were very soft. “Darling,” she said, “doesn't morning sickness mean anything to you?”

“Morning—” he began, and then his expression altered, he stared incredulously, started to speak but stopped, tongue-tied. He moved forward and looked down at her as she stared at him, smiling. He gasped: “No! No, darling, not—””Well,” said Janet, “it's two years since we were married, or had you forgotten?” She laughed. “What shall we call him, if it's a boy?”

Roger felt like a man in a dream.

He should have realised it for several days past, or at least suspected it. Everything which had puzzled him was explained, her excitability and quick changes of mood, the ease of her tears, her occasional moments of acerbity.

His first reaction was of delight tinged with anxieties about the little luxuries that he would not be able to provide because of the war. A more urgent matter was the possibility that in his amazement he had made her think that he was lukewarm about it. Had he been sufficiently enthusiastic? Or had he depressed her?

He had left her to do the packing while he went on to open the house, to get the car out and to get in touch with Mark before going to the Yard. He had only vaguely outlined his own programme and he hardly gave a thought to Malone and Oliphant. His mind could not grapple with those problems as well as digest Janet's news. He travelled by taxi and now and again caught himself grinning inanely; when he did so he closed his mouth firmly. Once, when he lit a cigarette, he began to grin so widely that it dropped from his lips. He smothered an exclamation of annoyance, then surrendered himself for five minutes in an orgy of self-congratulation. Only when they were passing the Chelsea Town Hall did he pull himself together.